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Saskatchewan Lawyer News

Lawyer says if insurance can avoid paying, they will not pay

Kenneth Noble, a lawyer in Regina who specializes in insurance claims, said that if insurance companies could find a way to avoid paying a claim, they will not pay.

Noble spoke in connection with the case of the couple from Saskatchewan, Jennifer Huculak-Kimmel and Darren, who was charged with almost a million by a hospital in Hawaii where Jennifer had to prematurely give birth to their child while on vacation.

Jennifer was six months pregnant when she and Darren decided to take a trip to Hawaii. They signed up with Saskatchewan Blue Cross for their travel insurance but now the firm is refusing to pay their bill claiming she had pre-existing conditions.

Noble said the couple's case is the biggest so far that he has heard of.

According to the lawyer, aside from checking the authenticity of a claim, insurance firms also thoroughly evaluate a claim to check if there are ways for them to avoid paying the claim.

Noble added that in this case, the couple could get a lawyer who can investigate the claim then give the results to the insurance company.

If no deal is met, parties can exhaust all legal steps available with the final step being bringing the matter before the court.

Appeals Court lowers sentence for sexual assault convict

Posted Sep 12, 2014 on www.leaderpost.com

Konrad D. Dyck successfully appealed his 10-year sentence for admitting to aggravated sexual assault after the Appeals Court decided to lower it to a little more than five years.

Dyck was originally sentenced to nine years for brutally and humiliatingly raping a woman, who was 20 years old at the time the incident happened in 2011. And, another year for evading arrest and crashing his vehicle in the process.

He was left with eight years and a half to serve after the judge credited him for time served in custody.

However, the Appeals judge found the nine-year sentence for aggravated assault unfitting and lowered it to six years.

Although the one year for fleeing police was retained, after the credited time served, Dyck only has five years and one month to serve.

Canada Lawyer News

Man who attacks several women in Terwillegar gets 12-year prison term

Posted Jan 29, 2016 on edmontonjournal.com

Mark Moriarty, who has been terrorizing women in the Terwillegar area in Edmonton, will be spending 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to a total of 17 charges, the most serious of which is sexual assault.

The 12-year sentence was closer to what Tania Holland, prosecutor for the Crown, asked which was 15 and a half years.

This was countered by Steve Fix, a criminal defence lawyer in Edmonton representing Moriarty who asked for no more than between eight to 10 years saying that his client could still redeem himself and blaming his actions to his addiction to cocaine.

Moriarty had shown remorse for his crime, however, it seems that the victims' statements had more impact collectively describing the attacks as horrible and pointing out what a manipulator Moriarty was.

The charges stemmed from attacks on eight victims, the youngest of which was a girl aged 14 years old, from 2012 to 2014.

Final arguments submitted for woman killed by snow plow

Posted Jan 16, 2016 on edmontonjournal.com

Final arguments have been submitted to the court on the death of 39 years old Claudia Trindale who was hit by a snow plow driven by Douglas James Zaboroski towards the end of January last year.

During the incident, the 52-year-old Zaboroski ran a stoplight, turned right and hit Trindale who was on the crosswalk.

Unaware that he had hit Trindale, Zaboroski had gone on until someone had called his attention to what happened.

Trindale was taken to the hospital where she succumbed days later to the injuries she suffered at the incident.

Thus Zaboroski was charged with careless driving, failing to stop at a red light and failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

Edmonton defence lawyer Edmond O'Neill claims that it was an accident and not negligence on the part of his client.

O'Neill is not arguing that his client did ran a stop light but he is asking to acquit him on the other two charges.

According to O'Neill, with the massive size of the snow plow, it was understandable for Zaboroski to assume that people would see it and promptly give way to the vehicle.

Trindale, however, had on a hooded parka and had earphones stuck to her ears.

The Crown argued that Zaboroski's assumption was not a defence and that instead of stopping, he decided to ran the red light.

Zaboroski will have to wait and see next month for his fate with the verdict expected to be given out on February 3.

Frying pan death suspect mentally cleared to face trial

Posted Jun 26, 2015 on www.calgarysun.com

The trial for the 2012 death of Gatleak Thor Metkurjock will now proceed after the suspect has been declared as mentally fit to stand trial following a psychiatric assessment.

The suspect, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, is facing second-degree murder charges for allegedly bashing Thor Metkurjock in the head with a frying pan.

At that time, Thor Metkurjock and the suspect was attending a house party. The victim had passed out drunk and was being brought out. He had woken up and was belligerent so the suspect allegedly got a frying pan and hit him with it.

Ouellette said that he had concerns with his client's capability to undergo trial but now they have been allayed, thus, they will now proceed to trial.

Pastor nets jail for possessing child pornography

Posted Jun 18, 2015 on www.edmontonsun.com

Richard John Docekal, who used to be a pastor in Edmonton, will be spending six months in jail after he submitted a guilty plea to possession of child pornography.

The 59-year-old Docekal admitted to having a large collection of pornographic materials of drawings in cartoons depicting children having sexual relations with their parents.

Ed O'Neill, a lawyer in Edmonton defending for the disgraced pastor, said that his client has regretted his misdeed which resulted to him no longer serving as a pastor.

Docekal's marriage also became a casualty of his unsavory hobby and he was also subjected to public humiliation after his arrest landed on the front pages of the news, said the lawyer.

The pastor's penchant for the pornographic materials came to light after the woman with whom he had an affair blew the whistle on him.

Woman sentenced to prison for injecting silicone into other women's butts

Posted Mar 26, 2015 on www.vicnews.com

Marilyn Reid received an eight-year prison sentence for using silicone oil in performing butt lifts on her women clients without their knowledge.

Earlier in January, Reid had submitted a guilty plea to eight counts of aggravated assault.

According to the sentencing judge, Reid put the lives of her clients in danger without thought to their safety because she was only thinking of the profit that she would be getting.

Reid deceived her clients by promising them that she would be injecting PMMA, a substance that could only be acquired through the black market anyway because it is not approved for cosmetic surgery by Health Canada.

Four of Reid's five victims suffered serious injuries. Medical practitioners also had a hard time in treating them because they had no idea what was injected into their butts.

The Crown had asked for between 10 to 12-year sentence while Toronto lawyer Calvin Barry countered with 30 months.

Reid, however, will only be serving a little more than five years because the judge credited the time that she had spent in custody.